With increasing demand for faster, more powerful and more efficient ways to store information, optimization of storage technologies has become a key challenge.
Logical data objects (data files, image files, data blocks, etc.) may be transformed for transmission and/or storage. The transformation may comprise compression, encryption, encoding, conversion, etc. and/or combinations thereof. For example, data compression techniques are used to reduce the amount of data to be stored or transmitted in order to reduce storage capacity and transmission time respectively. Compression may be achieved by using different compression algorithms known in the art. Data stored in plaintext is open to potential malicious use (e.g. unauthorized access, misuse, theft, etc.), and known in the art solutions for perimeter and/or access control (e.g. firewalls, Virtual Private Networks, LUN masking control and zoning in SAN storage networks, NAS security control features, etc.) still leave security vulnerabilities. Encrypting data to be stored may considerably reduce security threats; such encryption may be provided by using different algorithms known in the art.
The problems of compressing, encrypting or other transforming data for storage and access to the stored transformed data have been recognized in the Prior Art and various systems have been developed to provide a solution. For example, various solutions are disclosed in International Applications WO2007138600, WO2007138601 and WO2007138602 published Dec. 12, 2007 and assigned to the assignee of the present application. The entire contents of said International Applications are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety.